


Of Purple and Starlight

by joannabelle



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angband, Dagor Dagorath, Gen, M/M, Mordor, Númenor, Sauron is batshit but hey what's new, angbang, throw me out I'll be over here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 12:43:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4829597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joannabelle/pseuds/joannabelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Sauron laughed until he cried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Purple and Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is such Tolkien blasphemy. Safe to say I do not own it, and should probably be thrown out in the trash~  
> Rating: Mature  
> Warnings: Everything. Nothing. Gore, but it’s light.  
> Notes: A peek through: Angband, Númenor, Mordor, & Dagor Dagorath. Aka, that fic in which Sauron is fucking crazy.

* * *

  


Ainur feel no joy, nor pain:  
  
Or this is what he tells himself.  
  


* * *

  
The first time it happens, he does not quite _realise_. For the snap of the elf’s neck is like this: a careful, perfect cracking that tastes of chalk.   
  
It is a deep split of a sound – one that rings through the dungeon cell in an echo and bounces off the walls. And for a moment Mairon is flooded with the strangest of sensations: as though he had heard this _exact_ sound once before. A furling shout, the burn underneath a shrilling bent of screams – and the cracking fracture of a tree. A noise that spelled the starting of the end.  
  
The laughter puffs out his throat, then, almost … unintentional.  And it is – maybe – ever-so-slightly out of place.  But Mairon does not notice, and he wheels around in a glee –  
  
Lord Melkor’s eyes have shifted from their latch upon the elf – and they cut into him now, in an icy burn across the cell – a dead _lock_ upon him. And there is something unusual in the Vala’s expression that Mairon does not quite notice, caught as he is upon the thrill of the sound.  
  
He gasps, his giggle shrill, a higher note than before – but it is not abnormal.  Nothing that strange here is really taking place… He is merely –  
  
He _merely_ –  
  
“Are you well?” The question bounces off his ears; but is not Lord Melkor who asks him, yet Captain Gothmog; the Balrog standing in a half-caught position getting up from the bench, his brow tying in a knit.  A few of the Orcs around the table are staring at him, too, as Mairon tries to catch his breath – looks around;  
  
And there is no elf.   
  
No cell.  
  
Not here; he sits inside the War Room, fingers murmuring across the stone cut of the table; and his shoulders are trembling.   
  
“Of course,” Mairon stutters, between the gulps, as he feels himself calm – slightly giddy – back down, shakes his head.  He looks over; and maybe he is not wrong – for Lord Melkor’s eyes still slice hard into him, spread him bare from across the room – and there is something in the Vala’s _eye_ there – as though he too can _see_ –  
  
“I simply heard a sound.”  
  


* * *

  
The second time it hits he is lying in the dirt; his lips pressed firm into the ground.  His mouth is thick with dust.  
  
For it is in the sucking of a breath that Mairon _cackles_ this time and lies, half a world away from Angband, crumpled in a heap – his shoulders trembling against the stone.  And anyone passing at that moment would have seen it – that fey odd _sight_ he makes upon the earth.  A Maia pressed in freckles gold, whose mottled hair shines with the silver sheen of blood.  
  
He twists his face further into the crevices between the pebbles, between the dirt, as he tries to block out the sound of the screams; of that trawling yell of which could only be his own – and the deep dug resignation in Melkor's eyes.  
  
And it is the resignation that gets to him. That one fucking look.  
  
For there he laughs, and it burns out his throat like an inferno – where tight between each bitter tasting breath, Mairon tries in vein to hide the putrid stench of tears.  
  
He is utterly and totally alone.  
  


* * *

  
The _third_ time it happens, his lips are tingeing blue.  
  
For this time, it starts with but the sweetest of temptations – the slick, burning vengeance of the loss. Mairon watches from the white-carved window of Númenor’s highest peak, sunken in the frame of Ar-Pharazôn’s golden throne, his thin hands in a threaded knit across his lap.  
  
The fools.  
  
They are insane, but such is the way of Men – and he has seen to that.  He has played their game, and won.  
  
And the shaking starts much as one would imagine.  
  
For between the burgeoning calling of the shrieks along the shore, and the crevice between Mairon’s shoulder blades; the next time Mairon laughs it is with a burning fury.  His chest trembles in a _fit_.  
  
For the wave crashes in a smash akin to the smoothing crumb of rock – and yet while he hears the sound of it, he misses the _significance_ , furled as he is through the throws of his laugh.  
  
He peers from that window as the very last of the soldiers depart, the scurries of the lingered remnants leaving the city streets bare.  Open and empty.  
  
Deserted.  
  
And he pictures the look upon Manwë’s face, as they close in upon the shore.  The widening shock in the Vala’s old powder-blue eyes, and the thinning of his lips.  
  
And Sauron finds that this time, despite his breaths, he cannot quite make it stop; for it is the most perfect of plans.  His most avid creation: the Ring sits upon his index, and he breaks them at their _spine_.   
  
And there is a rumbling, now, like the bursting of his fëa, as Mairon all but doubles over in his seat, the spinning of the glee eating at his bones.  It shakes the floor below him; the very foundations of the world.  
  
And he gasps – and breathes in a mouthful of salt.  
  
His lips are tingeing blue.  
  


* * *

  
The fourth laugh has no feeling.  
  
And crumbling through the cracks of the tower; it makes not a sound.  
  
Mordor trembles in a quiver below him, of splits and breaks and termite holes; and something is most certainly wrong, here, something has gone bad.  
  
He should not find pleasure in this.  
  
He –  
  
_He_ –  
  


* * *

  
His last laugh is a scald.    
  
Disjointed. It trembles through his fingers. And Mairon is unsure, then, whether he is really feeling it at all.  
  
Perhaps this is all nothing but a vision, some warped cloud across his mind, fed to him from those first scraps of the Beginning, and the starting click of Time. Where Eru is but waiting.  
  
The very starting of the End.  
  
And maybe this is _it_.  And rather, he does suspect this is the case – for the lights are brighter, this time.  The fire is stronger.  His hands are trembling; and his Master stands across the field, burning like the sun.  
  
And he laughs; and it is careless.  
  
For he stumbles forward, over the rocks.  Over the bones, charred and singeing, and the flowing lap of flame –  
  
He peers at the bodies below him; of the fire consuming bone; the burning flesh that reminds him of an Old time. A past time, where he strode, whip in fist, along the long slick corridors of dungeons, and the curling whining screams that bounced upon the walls.   
  
He is steered towards his Master, visible and tall above the crowd – and he is Mairon again, still laughing, the mirth bubbling _uncontrollably_ through his limbs – as he wraps his armoured arm around the Vala’s waist, and presses the smattered cackle into Melkor’s lips.  
  
It is in an instant as though Eä itself disappears.  His chest is trembling, and Melkor smiles, this time, and sucks in the breath of him, seems to taste his very being, as the Vala reaches around Mairon’s weapon and grabs him – so tight it hurts, so hard against his chest.  
  
“Yes,” Mairon pants, against his lips, pressing his forehead up on tiptoes through the steel caps of his boots to meet Melkor’s own, “my Lord, this is all I ever wanted. Let us burn them together.”  
  
The lie burns at his lips. And yet it is in the curling lull of music, coming to an end.  
  
And he is hard: he is straining in one final last fury against his leggings – and how he wishes then and there to take his Master, spread-eagle on the battlefield; but now is not the time. And Tulkas, from the corner of his eye – Tulkas, that red-faced troll, is closing in.  
  
He is bleeding, somewhere … somewhere down his leg.  
  
And still he laughs, as he presses in the kiss.  
  
As he dreads that final beat;  
  
And pretends it doesn’t ache.


End file.
